Last, but not least, one comes to the question of abortion. Here the claim is that a woman's right to privacy (understood as the right to control her own body) drives us toward the constitutional protection of the right to terminate a pregnancy. The constant invocation of privacy in this context is odd, to say the least: The issue is not whether other individuals will learn about your behavior. Rather, the question goes to the reach of a woman's autonomy. Most pregnancies are the result of voluntary sexual relations, so the question boils down to whether the woman's autonomy right over her own body allows her to terminate a pregnancy.

ABORTION IS NOT JUST AN ISSUE OF PRIVACY, IT IS MUCH MORE COMPLEX THAN THAT

At this point, the argument raises serious moral and enforcement issues. How they should be resolved may be an open question. But even so, this short discussion should achieve at least one goal: The case for abortion is not clinched by the invocation of some "fundamental right" to privacy. It rests on a complex evaluation of competing issues of moral judgment and practical enforcement.